Daily Dose of Trivia: "I Didn't Know That!"
- Every episode of "Seinfeld" contains at least one Superman.
- Hummingbirds can't walk.
- June Foray, the voice of Talking Tina from the classic
Twilight Zone episode "Living Doll", was also the voice of Rocky the
talking squirrel from "Rocky & Bullwinkle".
- The dunce cap of schoolhouse fame originates from a paper cone
that was placed on the heads of accused witches during the Middle Ages.
When Joan of Arc was martyred, she was wearing one of them.
- Despite the hump, a camel's spine is straight.
- "Rhythm" and "syzygy" are the longest English words without
vowels.
- There is no mention of Adam and Eve eating an apple in the
Bible.
- The largest eggs in the world are laid by a shark.
- Jacques Cousteau invented scuba gear while in the French
resistance during World War II.
- More people are killed each year from bees than from snakes.
- "Halloween" took place in the town of Haddonfield, Illinois
but almost all the cars in the film had California license plates.
- A rat can last longer without water than a camel.
- There are more nutrients in the cornflake package itself than
there are in the actual cornflakes.
- Peanuts are used in the production of dynamite.
- The bubbles in Guiness Beer sink to the bottom rather than
float to the top like all other beers. No one knows why.
- Casey Kasem is the voice of Shaggy on "Scooby-Doo."
- Soda water does not contain soda.
- A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find
a mate.
- "Smithee" is a pseudonym that filmmakers use when they don't
want their names to appear in the credits.
- The lifespan of a tastebud is ten days.
- Bob May played the Robot on "Lost In Space" (1965-68) and Dick
Tufeld was the voice.
- Crocodiles swallow stones to help them dive deeper.
- When opossums are playing opossum, they are not "playing."
They actually pass out from sheer terror.
- Liquid paper was invented by Mike Nesmith's (of the Monkees)
mother, Bette Nesmith Graham, in 1951.
- The turkey was wrongly named after what was thought to be it's
country of origin.
- More money is printed daily for the Monopoly game than by the
U.S. Treasury.
- There is a city called Rome on every continent.
- The screwdriver was invented before the screw.
- Four people played Darth Vader: David Prowse was his body,
James Earl Jones did the voice, Sebastian Shaw was his face and a
fourth person did the breathing.
- Flying from London to New York by Concord, due to the time
zones crossed, you can arrive 2 hours before you leave.
- The names of the three wise monkeys are: Mizaru: See no evil,
Mikazaru: Hear no evil, and Mazaru: Speak no evil.
- There are no rivers in Saudi Arabia.
- John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in a theatre and was found in a
warehouse. Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and was
found in a theatre.
- The spaceship 'Valley Forge' from "Silent Running" (1971)
actually got it's name from the location used to film some of its
interiors; a decommissioned aircraft carrier named the U.S.S. Valley
Forge.
- Anteaters prefer termites to ants.
- Nine pennies weigh exactly one ounce.
- If you pause "Saturday Night Fever" at the "How Deep Is Your
Love" rehearsal scene, you will see the camera crew reflected in the
dance hall mirror.
- Every Swiss citizen is required by law to have a bomb shelter
or access to a bomb shelter.
- It takes 8.5 minutes for light to get from the sun to earth.
- Spain literally means 'the land of rabbits.'
- Jean-Claude Van Damme was the alien in the original "PREDATOR"
in almost all the jumping and climbing scenes.
- Earth is the only planet not named after a God.
- If you put a raisin in a glass of champagne, it will keep
floating to the top and sinking to the bottom.
- The mask used by Michael Myers in the original "Halloween" was
actually a Captain Kirk mask painted white.
- Pamela Lee-Anderson is Canada's Centennial Baby, being the
first baby born on the centennial anniversary of Canada's independence.
- Non-dairy creamer is flammable.
- Susan Lucci is the daughter of Phyllis Diller.
- Snails can sleep for 3 years without eating.
- The car in the foreground on the back of a $10 bill is a 1925
Huptmobile.
- In the Andes, time is often measured by how long it takes to
smoke a cigarette.
- Actor Tommy Lee Jones and vice-president Al Gore were freshman
roommates at Harvard.
- Brazil got its name from the nut, not the other way around.
- A species of earthworm in Australia grows up to 10 feet in
length.
- Dr. Seuss and Kurt Vonnegut went to college together. They
were even in the same fraternity, where Seuss decorated the fraternity
house walls with drawings of his characters.
- Turkey's often look up at the sky during a rainstorm.
Unfortunately some have been known to drown as a result.
- Albert Brooks's real name is Albert Einstein.
- The bat on the Bacardi symbol is there because the soil where
the sugar cane grows is fertile from the excessive guano (bat
droppings.)
- Kathleen Turner was the voice of Jessica Rabbit, and Amy
Irving was her singing voice.
- Catgut comes from sheep not cats.
- A lion's roar can be heard from five miles away.
- Talk show host Montel Williams had a nose job.
- Due to gravitational effects, you weigh slightly less when the
moon is directly overhead.
- If you can see a rainbow you must have your back to the sun.
If you don't, you can't see it.
- St. Bernards, famous for their role as alpine rescue dogs, do
NOT wear casks of brandy around their necks.
- Sharon Stone was the first "Star Search" spokes model.
- It's rumored that sucking on a copper penny will cause a
breath-alyzer to read 0.
- Clark Gable used to shower more than 4 times a day.
- There are only three cities that are named exactly after the
state they are located in: Maine, ME; New York, NY; and Wyoming, WY.
- The launching mechanism of a carrier ship that helps planes to
take off could throw a pickup truck over a mile.
- Bela Lugosi died during the filming of "PLAN 9 FROM OUTER
SPACE". Director Edward D. Wood Jr. used a taller relative who held a
cape in front of his face so the audience wouldn't know the difference
so he could complete filming.
- Only female mosquitoes bite.
- A duck's quack doesn't echo. No one knows why.
- The placement of a donkey's eyes in its' heads enables it to
see all four feet at all times.
- Walt Disney named Mickey Mouse after Mickey Rooney, whose
mother he dated for some time.
- There is about 200 times more gold in the world’s oceans, than
has been mined in our entire history.
- By raising your legs slowly and laying on your back, you can't
sink in quicksand.
- The name of the Vulcan's heaven is Sha Ka Ree, this is a play
on the name Sean Connery who was considered for the part of Sarek,
Spock's father.
- The "save" icon on Microsoft Word shows a floppy disk, with
the shutter on backwards.
- Blonde beards grow faster than darker beards.
- The first time the word "hell" was spoken on TV was in an
original "STAR TREK" episode entitled "City on the Edge of Forever".
The exact quote was "...let's get the hell out of here...", spoken by
William Shatner.
- From the age of thirty, humans gradually begin to shrink in
size.
- Roosters can't crow if they can't fully extend their necks.
- If a surgeon in Ancient Egypt lost a patient while performing
an operation, his hands were cut off.
- Ancient drinkers warded off the devil by clinking their cups.
- All of the officers in the Confederate army were given copies
of Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo, to carry with them at all times.
Robert E. Lee, among others, believed that the book symbolized their
cause. Both revolts were defeated.
- Human hair and fingernails do not continue to grow after
death.
- The fingerprints of koala bears are virtually
indistinguishable from those of humans, so much so that they could be
confused at a crime scene.
- The Nobel Prize resulted from a late change in the will of
Alfred Nobel, who did not want to be remembered after his death as a
propagator of violence - he invented dynamite.
- The first safety razor was not actually invented by King
Gillette himself but by a man named William Nickerson who was Kings
partner. They believed that the label bearing Nickersons name would be
bad for business, plus it was Kings idea anyway.
- Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a "Friday the
13th."
- Pogonophobia is the fear of beards.
- Robert E. Lee, of the Confederate Army, remains the only
person, to date, to have graduated from the West Point military academy
without a single demerit.
- James Doohan, who plays Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott on Star
Trek, is missing the entire middle finger of his right hand.
- Oak trees do not have acorns until they are fifty years old or
older.
- In Ancient Peru, when a woman found an 'ugly' potato, it was
the custom for her to push it into the face of the nearest man.
- The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one-mile in
every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as
airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.
- The magic word "Abracadabra" was originally intended for the
specific purpose of curing hay fever.
- The 'Hundred Years War' lasted 116 years.
- The first inter-racial kiss on TV was in an original "STAR
TREK" episode entitled "Plato's Stepchildren". The kiss was between
Nichelle Nichols and William Shatner.
- No animal, once frozen solid (i.e., water solidifies and turns
to ice) survives when thawed, because the ice crystals formed inside
cells would break open the cell membranes. However there are certain
frogs that can survive the experience of being frozen. These frogs make
special proteins, which prevent the formation of ice (or at least keep
the crystals from becoming very large), so that they actually never
freeze even though their body temperature is below zero Celsius. The
water in them remains liquid: a phenomenon known as 'supercooling.' If
you disturb one of these frogs (just touching them even), the water in
them quickly freezes solid and they die.
- It is believed that Shakespeare was 46 around the time that
the King James Version of the Bible was written. In Psalms 46, the 46th
word from the first word is shake and the 46th word from the last word
is spear.
- It is illegal to be a prostitute in Siena, Italy, if your name
is Mary.
- The United States government keeps its supply of silver at the
U.S. Military Academy at West Point, NY.
- Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have
about ten.
- Pinocchio is Italian for "pine eyes."
- Most Americans' car horns beep in the key of F.
- Bruce Lee was so fast that they actually had to SLOW a film
down so you could see his moves. That's the opposite of the norm.
- Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, never
phoned his wife or his mother. They were both deaf.
- Soweto in South Africa was derived from SOuth WEst TOwnship.
- The car manufacturer Henry Ford was awarded Hitler's Supreme
Order of the German Eagle.
- The Andy Griffth Show was the first spin-off in TV history. It
was spun-off from the Danny Thomas Show.
- On 15 April 1912 the SS Titanic sunk on her maiden voyage and
over 1,500 people died. Fourteen years earlier a novel was published by
Morgan Robertson which seemed to foretell the disaster. The book
described a ship the same size as the Titanic which crashes into an
iceberg on its maiden voyage on a misty April night. The name of
Robertson's fictional ship was the Titan.
- Walt Disney's autograph bears no resemblance to the famous
Disney logo.
- Other than humans, black lemurs are the only primates that
have blue eyes.
- There were no squirrels on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts
until 1989.
- Blueberry Jelly Bellies were created especially for Ronald
Reagan.
- While at Havard University, Edward Kennedy was suspended for
cheating on a Spanish exam.
- Barbie's full name is Barbra Millicent Roberts.
- Montpelier, Vermont is the only U.S. state capital without a
McDonalds.
- The correct response to the Irish greeting, "Top of the
morning to you," is "and the rest of the day to yourself."
- The Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many
bathrooms as is necessary. When it was built in the 1940s, the state of
Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet
facilities for blacks and whites.
- Residents of the island of Lesbos are Lesbosians, rather than
Lesbians. (Of course, lesbians are called lesbians because Sappho was
from Lesbos.)
- The Chinese ideogram for 'trouble' depicts two women living
under one roof'.
- It is a criminal offence to drive around in a dirty car in
Russia.
- Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted
people without killing them use to burn their houses down -- hence the
statement "to get fired."
- The childrens' nursery rhyme 'Ring-a-Round-The-Rosies'
actually refers to the Black Death which killed about 30 million people
in the fourteenth-century.
- The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth 2, moves only six inches for
each gallon of diesel that it burns.
- The Les Nessman character on the TV series WKRP in Cincinnati
wore a band-aid in every episode. Either on himself, his glasses, or
his clothing.
- Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan carries the designation
M-1, named so because it was the first paved road anywhere.
- Some Eskimos have been known to use refrigerators to keep
their food from freezing.
- Ralph Lauren's original name was Ralph Lifshitz.
- Lizzie Borden was acquitted.
- Lorne Greene had one of his nipples bitten off by an alligator
while he was host of "Lorne Greene's Wild Kingdom."
- Cat urine glows under a black light.
- Chrysler built B-29's that bombed Japan. Mitsubishi built the
Zeros that tried to shoot them down. Both companies now build cars in a
joint plant call Diamond Star.
- On the new one hundred dollar bill the time on the clock tower
of Independence Hall is 4:10.
- The first product Motorola started to develop was a record
player for automobiles. At that time the most known player on the
market was the Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola.
- The national flag of Italy was designed by Napoleon Bonaparte.
- Ancient Egyptians shaved off their eyebrows to mourn the
deaths of their cats.
- Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
- Hindu men believe(d) it to be unluckily to marry a third time.
They could avoid misfortune by marrying a tree first. The tree ( his
third wife ) was then burnt, freeing him to marry again.
- The province of Alberta in Canada has been completely free of
rats since 1905.
- Melanie Griffith's mother is actress Tippi Hendren, best known
for her lead role in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.
- Lady Astor once told Winston Churchill 'if you were my
husband, I would poison your coffee'. His reply ' if you were my wife,
I would drink it!'
- 142857 is a cyclic number, the numbers of which always appear
in the same order but rotated around when multiplied by any number from
1 to 6. 142857 * 2 = 285714 142857 * 3 = 428571 142857 * 4 = 571428
142857 * 5 = 714285 142857 * 6 = 857142
- King Kong is the only movie to have its sequel (Son of Kong)
released the same year (1933).
- A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
- The only member of the band ZZ Top without a beard has the
last name Beard.
- There are no clocks in Las Vegas casinos.
- In Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart never said "Play it again,
Sam." Sherlock Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson." Captain
Kirk never said "Beam me up, Scotty," but he did say, "Beam me up, Mr.
Scott."
- Chop-suey is not a native Chinese dish, it was created in
California by Chinese immigrants.
- John Larroquette of "Night Court" and "The John Larroquette
Show" was the narrator of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."
- A dragonfly has a lifespan of twenty-four hours.
- A ten-gallon hat holds three-quarters of a gallon.
- On an American one-dollar bill, there is an owl in the upper
left-hand corner of the "1" encased in the "shield" and a spider hidden
in the front upper right-hand corner.
- It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
- "Evian" (the bottled water) spelled backwards is "naive."
- Bingo is the name of the dog on the Cracker Jack box.
- There are four cars and eleven light posts on the back of a
ten-dollar bill.
- Armored knights raised their visors to identify themselves
when they rode past their king. This custom has become the modern
military salute.
- It was illegal to sell ET dolls in France because there is a
law against selling dolls without human faces.
- The numbers '172' can be found on the back of the U.S. $5
dollar bill in the bushes at the base of the Lincoln Memorial.
- In the film 'Star Trek : First Contact', when Picard shows
Lilly she is orbiting Earth, Australia and Papa New Guinea are clearly
visible .. but New Zealand is missing.
- George Washington grew marijuana in his garden.
- If you are locked in a completely sealed room, you will die of
carbon dioxide poisoning before you will die of oxygen deprivation.
- If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front
legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front
leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in
battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died
of natural causes.
- Panama hats come from Ecuador not Panama.
- Human birth control pills work on gorillas.
- Cheryl Ladd (of Charlie's Angels fame) played the voice, both
talking and singing, of Josie in the 70s Saturday morning cartoon
"Josie and the Pussycats."
- Lynyrd Skynard was the name of the gym teacher of the boys who
went on to form that band. He once told them, "You boys ain't never
gonna amount to nothin'."
- Gilligan of Gilligan's Island had a first name that was only
used once, on the never-aired pilot show. His first name was Willy. The
skipper's real name on Gilligan's Island is Jonas Grumby. It was
mentioned once in the first episode on the radio newscast about the
wreck. The Professor's real name was Roy Hinkley, Mary Ann's last name
was Summers and Mrs. Howell's maiden name was Wentworth.
- In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
- During the chariot scene in 'Ben Hur' a small red car can be
seen in the distance.
- Ivory bar soap floating was a mistake. They had been over
mixing the soap formula causing excess air bubbles that made it float.
Customers wrote and told how much they loved that it floated, and it
has floated ever since.
- Alexander the Great was an epileptic.
- The lead singer of The Knack, famous for "My Sharona," and
Jack Kevorkian's lead defense attorney are brothers, Doug & Jeffrey
Feiger.
- When young and impoverished, Pablo Picasso kept warm by
burning his own paintings.
- The name for Oz in the "Wizard of Oz" was thought up when the
creator, Frank Baum, looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N, and O-Z,
hence "Oz."
- Elvis had a twin brother named Jesse Garon, who died at birth,
which is why Elvis' middle name was spelled Aron; in honor of his
brother.
- The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a
radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
- S.O.S. doesn't stand for "Save Our Ship" or "Save Our Souls"
-- It was chosen by an 1908 international conference on Morse Code
because the letters S and O were easy to remember and just about anyone
could key it and read it, S = dot dot dot, O = dash dash dash.
- Crickets hear through their knees.
- Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.
- A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
- The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
- Heroin is the brand name of morphine once marketed by Bayer.
- U.S. Interstates which go north-south are numbered
sequentially starting from the west with odd numbers, and Interstates
which go east-west are numbered sequentially starting from the south
with even numbers.
- A walla-walla scene is one where extras pretend to be talking
in the background -- when they say "walla-walla" it looks like they are
actually talking.
- The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law
which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than
your thumb.
- The phrase ' The 3 R's ' ( standing for 'reading, writing and
arithmetic' ) was created by Sir William Curtis, who was illiterate.
- The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper.
- 101 Dalmatians and Peter Pan are the only two Disney cartoon
features with both parents that are present and don't die throughout
the movie.
- "Video Killed the Radio Star" was the very first video ever
played on MTV.
- During World War II, W.C. Fields kept US $50,000 in Germany
'in case the little bastard wins'.
- According to Genesis 1:20-22 the chicken came before the egg.
- To "testify" was based on men in the Roman court swearing to a
statement made by swearing on their testicles.
- Both Hitler and Napoleon were missing one testicle.
- A whale's penis is called a dork.
- A barnacle has the largest penis of any other animal in the
world in relation to its size.
- Iguanas, koalas and Komodo dragons all have two penises.
- Jet lag was once called boat lag, back before jets existed.
- There are more beetles than any other kind of creature in the
world.
- The Phillips-head screwdriver was invented in Oregon.
- Tomb robbers believed that knocking Egyptian sarcophagi's
noses off would forestall curses.
- Mozart was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave.
- The allele for six fingers and toes is dominant in humans.
- Polar bear fur is not white, it's clear.
- Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the
shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.
- If you feed a seagull Alka-Seltzer, its stomach will explode.
- Boris Karloff is the narrator of the seasonal television
special "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."
- Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that
makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.
- Samuel Clemens's pseudonym "Mark Twain" was the nickname of a
riverboat pilot about whom Clemens wrote a needless nasty satirical
piece. Apparently, Clemens felt guilty later and adopted the nom de
plume as some sort of expiation. The phrase "mark twain" from which the
river pilot got his name does not mean two fathoms (twelve feet.)
- Steve Young, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback, is the
great-great-grandson of Mormon leader Brigham Young.
- A rhinoceros' horn is made of compacted hair.
- Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister.
- The "Grinch" singer and voice of Tony the Tiger is a man named
Thurl Ravenscroft.
- The famous split-fingered Vulcan salute is actually intended
to represent the first letter ("shin," pronounced "sheen") of the word
"shalom." As a small boy, Leonard Nimoy observed his rabbi using it in
a benediction and never forgot it; eventually he was able to add it to
"Star Trek" lore.
- Revolvers cannot be silenced, due to all the noisy gasses
which escape the cylinder gap at the rear of the barrel.
- Babies are born without kneecaps. They don't appear until the
child reaches 2-6 years of age.
- The slogan on New Hampshire license plates is 'Live Free or
Die'. These license plates are manufactured by prisoners in the state
prison in Concord.
- Of the six men who made up the Three Stooges, three of them
were real brothers (Moe, Curly and Shemp.)
- The pet ferret (Mustela putorias furo) was domesticated more
than 500 years before the house cat.
- "Hara kiri" is an impolite way of saying the Japanese word
"seppuku" which means, literally, "belly splitting."
- "Race car" is a palindrome.
- Lincoln Logs were invented by Frank Lloyd Wright's son.
- The longest U.S. highway is route 6 starting in Cape Cod,
Massachusetts going through 14 states, and ending in Bishop,
California.
- The original copy of the Declaration of Independence is lost.
The copy in Washington D.C. is what is referred to as a holograph. That
is a term for a handmade copy of a document and is not the same as a
laser produced hologram.
- The little bags of netting for gas lanterns (called 'mantles')
are radioactive--so much so that they will set of an alarm at a nuclear
reactor.
- "Speak of the Devil" is short for "Speak of the Devil and he
shall come". It was believed that if you spoke about the Devil it would
attract his attention and he would appear.
- An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain.
- Gerald Ford pardoned Robert E. Lee posthumously of all crimes
of treason.
- The band "Duran Duran" got their name from an astronaut in the
1968 Jane Fonda movie "Barbarella."
- After human death, post-mortem rigidity starts in the head and
travels to the feet, and leaves the same way it came -- head to toe.
- Debra Winger was the voice of E.T.
- The dome on Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home, conceals a
billiards room. In Jefferson's day, billiards were illegal in Virginia.
- In most watch advertisements the time displayed on the watch
is 10:10 because then the arms frame the brand of the watch (and make
it look like it's smiling.)
- Alfred Hitchcock didn't have a belly button. It was eliminated
when he was sewn up after surgery.
- The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan."
- Every photograph of an American atomic bomb detonation was
taken by Harold Edgerton.
- Dr. Samuel A. Mudd was the physician who set the leg of
Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth, and whose shame created the
statement for ignominy, "His name is Mudd."
- Bob Dylan's real name is Robert Zimmerman.
- The term "devil's advocate" comes from the Roman Catholic
church. When deciding if someone should be sainted, a devil's advocate
is always appointed to give an alternative view.
- Compact discs read from the inside to the outside edge, the
reverse of how a record works.
- The 'Screwdriver' was invented by oilmen, who used the tool to
stir the drink.
- The term "Mayday" is used for signaling for help. It comes
from the French term "M'aidez" which is pronounced "MayDay" and means,
"Help Me."
- The Boston University Bridge (on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston,
Massachusetts) is the only place in the world where a boat can sail
under a train driving under a car driving under an airplane.
- Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and
ears never stop growing.
- Barbie's measurements if she were life size: 39-23-33.
- February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to
have a full moon.
- The first Ford cars had Dodge engines.
- Leonardo De Vinci invented the scissors.
- Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of
the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
- The first toilet ever seen on television was on "Leave It To
Beaver".
- One of the reasons marijuana is illegal today is because
cotton growers in the 30s lobbied against hemp farmers -- they saw it
as competition. It is not chemically addictive as is nicotine, alcohol,
or caffeine.
- Pearls melt in vinegar.
- Ninety eight per cent of the weight of water is made up from
oxygen.
- A fully loaded supertanker traveling at normal speed takes a
least twenty minutes to stop.
- A flush toilet exists that dates back to 2000 BC.
- No matter its size or thickness, no piece of paper can be
folded in half more than 7 times.
- Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into
space because passing wind in a spacesuit damages them.
- Former US President Ulysses S. Grant had the boyhood nickname
'Useless'.
- Boys who have unusual first names are more likely to have
mental problems than boys with conventional names. Girls don't seem to
have this problem.
- Russians generally answer the phone by saying, 'I'm
listening.'
- Until 1967, LSD was legal in California.
- In the 40's, the Bich pen was changed to Bic for fear that
Americans would pronounce it 'Bitch.'
- Termites eat wood twice as fast when listening to heavy metal
music.
- The NY phone book had 22 Hitlers before WWII. The NY phone
book had 0 Hitlers after WWII.
- There is a town in Texas called 'Ding Dong.'
- John Wilkes Booth's brother once saved the life of Abraham
Lincoln's son.
- The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
- Daniel Boone detested coonskin caps.
- Men leave their hotel rooms cleaner than women do.
- While performing her duties as queen, Cleopatra sometimes wore
a fake beard.
- Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for
dating are already married.
- If you multiply 526,315,789,473,684,210 with _any_ number you
will always find the original number in the result!
- If the population of the Earth continued to increase at its
present rate indefinitely, by 3530 A.D. the total mass of human flesh
and blood would equal the mass of the Earth. By 6826 A.D. it would
equal the mass of the known universe.
- Look at the number four on a clock face that uses Roman
numerals. If the clock is made correctly then the Roman numeral four is
wrong. The standard and correct way to write the Roman numeral four is
"IV," but the traditional way to show it on a clock face is "IIII."
Legend has it that a clock was made for a British king. When he saw the
clock he mis- informedly corrected the clock maker who re-did the clock
face to show a "IIII" instead of an "IV" thus not risking offending the
king. Other clock makers followed suit so as not to embarrass the king.
Now it is the traditional way to make clocks.